Tag Archives: Black Radio

Above all, I’m grateful for my blessings, I can truly say that. This coward that took the lives of so many innocent people in Orlando should not be called a terrorist. It was a horrific occurrence, and while I do consider acts of violence terrorist acts, this weakling for lack of better description isn’t worthy.

This time last Sunday Ted Williams was living behind an abandoned gas station with several other homeless men. Now, just seven days later, his “golden voice” will be heard all across America tonight when Kraft Foods uses Ted in a nationally-televised commercial. He’ll do the voice-over for a Kraft Macaroni & Cheese advertisement. The spot will be featured during tonight’s Fight Hunger Bowl, when Boston College plays Nevada.

“The video went viral, now he’s huge and getting job offers,” my wife Kim said to me, “the Cavaliers offered him a job and a house.” I’m talking about the now famous Ted Williams. A homeless man — originally from Brooklyn — encountered by a news reporter on the streets of Columbus Ohio, is the country’s new “celebrity.”

Frankie Crocker, the New York radio personality imbued the R&B format with a wide-reaching musical palette that includes music from just about every genre. Born in Buffalo, NY, Crocker began his radio career at Williamsville, NY, station WUFO, while studying Pre law. His other stints include other N.Y. radio stations WWRL and Top 40 station WMCA. Becoming a program director at WBLS-FM and WLIB-AM in the early 1970s, Crocker began to shape an innovative and influential radio format that would become known as progressive R&B while garnering the top spot in the ratings. His timing was perfect as a new kind of R&B station was beginning to spring up on the FM dial around the country.